[NNTP] Snapshot 4

[Ken Murchison]

Clive D.W. Feather wrote:

> Ken Murchison said:
> 
>>>However, given Russ's concerns about the client making decisions on the
>>>basis of this line, would "COMMENT" or "REMARK" be better?
>>
>>I think IMPLEMENTATION describes the kind of info that's 
>>desired/expected better than COMMENT or REMARK.
> 
> 
> I was thinking of giving more freedom, so that the server operator can
> provide other comments there (using more than one line, perhaps).
> 
> 
>>As far as concern that a client would make decisions based on this:
>>
>>1.  Why would it need to given the rest of the advertised capabilities?
>>2.  We can specifically state that the info is for informational 
>>purposes only and MUST not be used to determine a server's capabilities.
> 
> 
> Current text:
> 
>     The server MAY include a line that begins with the token
>     "IMPLEMENTATION" to provide information such as the server software
>     name and version number. The client MUST NOT use this line to
>     determine capabilities of the server.

Cool.  FWIW, here's the relevent text from RFC 2449 (POP extensions). 
Use it as you see fit.

        It is often useful to identify an implementation of a particular
        server (for example, when logging).  This is commonly done in the
        welcome banner, but one must guess if a string is an
        implementation ID or not.

        The argument to the IMPLEMENTATION capability consists of one or
        more tokens which identify the server. (Note that since CAPA
        response tag arguments are space-separated, it may be convenient
        for the IMPLEMENTATION capability argument to not contain spaces,
        so that it is a single token.)

        A server MAY include the implementation identification both in
        the welcome banner and in the IMPLEMENTATION capability.

        Clients MUST NOT modify their behavior based on the server
        implementation.  Instead the server and client should agree on a
        private extension.


The first paragraph might be useful to describe why we have this 
capability.  I think you already have language similar to paragraphs two 
and four.  I don't know if the third paragraph is really necessary.

-- 
Kenneth Murchison     Oceana Matrix Ltd.
Software Engineer     21 Princeton Place
716-662-8973 x26      Orchard Park, NY 14127
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